Volume 2, Issue 6 | August 2025
The fourth Climate and Equity Institute took place July 20th – 26th at the Schoodic Institute in Maine. The 2025 Fellows represented widely diverse locales— Hawai’i, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, California, New York, Kansas, and Massachusetts. Several Fellows from prior years returned to serve as resources during the sessions, and to welcome the new Fellows into the Climate and Equity community. We were also fortunate to have sessions with Maulian Bryant of the Penobscot nation, and Executive Director of the Wabanaki Alliance, and Dr. Suzanne Greenlaw, of the Houlton Maliseet and an ecologist at Schoodic Institute, as well as Dr. Chris Nadeau another ecologist at Schoodic.
Program Updates
Just before the Institute took place, we received the good news that the Climate and Equity Institutes will have two more years of funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and their collaborators. The Foundation will also support development in 2025-6 of two pilot “Satellite Institutes,” designed by teams of Fellows with TERC support.
Brian Drayton of TERC retired at end of July but will continue working with the project, with a particular focus on the teacher community. Contact Brian at drayton.be@gmail.com
Updates from Climate and Equity Fellows
Diana De Paula (’23) and Sequoyah Wharton (’25) Selected as Albert Einstein Fellows
The Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program places experienced K–12 STEM teachers in federal agencies and congressional offices to inform education policy with real classroom insight. Fellows gain firsthand experience in education policy development and return with valuable tools and insights to enhance teaching and learning in their school communities. The program is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS), in partnership with Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), and collaboration with multiple federal agencies. Fifteen educators from around the country have been selected for Einstein Fellowships, and two of them are Climate and Equity Fellows. Congratulations!
Diana De Paula (’23), a Biology and Special Education teacher at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, New York, has been named one of fifteen educators nationwide selected for the prestigious 2025–2026 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship. Diana specializes in adapting rigorous science content for neurodivergent learners and has been instrumental in leading school-wide initiatives focused on student engagement, sustainability, and inclusive instruction. She also serves as the school’s Coordinator of Student Activities and Sustainability Coordinator. Diana is an alum of the NYC Teaching Fellows, Stanford Hollyhock Fellowship, STEM Ed Innovator, and the TERC Equity and Climate Institute, and is currently a Master Teacher Fellow with MƒA.
Through the fellowship, Diana will spend eleven months in Washington, D.C., working in the office of Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, contributing to national STEM education initiatives.
“I’m honored to serve as an Einstein Fellow and contribute to national conversations around STEM education,” said Diana. “I look forward to returning to Fort Hamilton with fresh perspectives, resources, and renewed energy to support our students and school community.”
Sequoyah Wharton ( ’25), of Selden, NY will also be an Einstein Fellow in ’25-26. Wharton, who is also Executive Director of the Empowering Global Educators Foundation
support@empoweringglobaleducatorsfoundation.org. Wharton says he hopes to work on a range of themes during his Fellowship, “such as exploring how student voice, media literacy, and culturally responsive education can inform national policy. Additionally, I believe the fellowship will give me a chance to advocate for them in new ways; through storytelling, equity work, and quite possibly, arts-based learning. I am also hoping to build on the global connections I have made through projects and travel, finding ways to bring those perspectives into policy conversations.”
Updates from Ohio – Claire Monk (’24)
have been asked to help facilitate a 4H youth climate workshop in partnership with the Department of Agriculture at The Ohio State University this summer. I will also be traveling to Arizona this summer to participate as a teacher/counselor at the University of Arizona’s astronomy camp. Hoping to integrate conversations related to fire season, drought and climate change from our observatory atop Mount Lemmon near Tucson. Best wishes to all!
Resources and Opportunities
Developing a Code Switching Resource:
At the Institute this July, Diana de Paula (’23) engaged the Fellows in a discussion of “code switching” as a strategy by which we can continue our advocacy and education on climate and equity by finding alternative ways to talk about issues without using terms that have become controversial, even when the ideas themselves remain of wide concern among our fellow citizens and our students. She has shared a “code-switching resource” on which she invites other Fellows to collaborate with her. The link is here.
New Book by Whitney Aragaki (’25) and Kirstin Milks (’22)
Kirstin Milks (’22) and Whitney Aragaki (’25) have a book out this fall from Corwin: Place-Based Science Teaching: Connecting Students to Curriculum, Community, and Caring for Our Planet. The book offers a comprehensive exploration of place-based teaching in science education, presenting a reader-friendly, lesson-ready guide for classroom teachers, informal educators, and community partners.
Pre-orders for the printed edition are on sale at the publisher’s website, and there is free standard shipping on U.S. online orders.
If you’re fond of e-reading, find preorders for that edition here.
Inside the book, you’ll find lesson ideas, inspiring storytelling from K-12 STEM educators across the nation, including Abe Cohen (’22), Tanya Flores (’22), and Ronnie Vesnaver (’22), through-lines to best practices like student-centered learning and project-based learning, insightful reflection prompts, accessible connections to education research, and a novel framework that will dynamically support readers in creating learning activities and assessments designed specifically for their settings — all with the goal of co-constructing a more just, peaceful, and abundant future.
Book Review by Lee Teevan (’25) : There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
A textbook description of the water molecule in a work of fiction temporarily jars the reader, who wonders about its relevancy early in the latest novel by Elif Shafak entitled There are Rivers in the Sky. Shafak explains that the water molecule is represented by a central and larger oxygen molecule with two smaller hydrogen atoms attached on either side. The chemical structure of the water molecule is non-linear. This is the structure by which Shafak intertwines human and personal history with the plea to recognize the need to care for our water and waterways. “Water remembers. It is humans who forget”, writes Shafak. (page 17)
The water molecule followed in this work precipitates as a raindrop and falls upon a brutal king, Ashurbanipal, who has misused water in the lands he rules. Today he is remembered for preserving a library of stone tablets, among which was The Epic of Gilgamesh. His kingdom is soon to be destroyed, leaving the cuneiform tablets fragmented.
In a small jar, the water molecule is preserved in modern-day Iraq by 9 year-old Narin and her grandmother. They are by the banks of the Tigris River in 2014 so that the young Narin can be baptized in the Yazidi faith. Their plans are interrupted by a construction worker intent on disrupting their ceremony and continuing his work to dam the river. They preserve that drop of water so that it can be used to baptize Narin in the Valley of Lalish, a holy site for Yazidis.
In 1840 London, next to the Thames, the water molecule falls as a snowflake on a newborn. King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums grows up in an impoverished family but uses his intellect to climb out of it. He is transformed by the Mesopotamian lamassus statue he sees in the museum and spends his life pursuing knowledge about Mesopotamia and Ashurbanipal’s stone tablets.
In modern day London next to the Thames, Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, is trying to sort out her life after the death of her parents and a divorce. Her life takes a turn when she meets Nen, who has a deep interest in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Mesopotamia.
Like the non-linear water molecule, Shafak inserts the characters’ stories asynchronously but they enter the stream of her storytelling coherently. Shafak’s writing is poetic “Under a sky so vast that it seems to stretch to infinity, Arthur observes the Tigris thunder past without pause, leaving stories in its wake like chalky sediment, oblivious to the suffering of humans” (page 384). Through time and place, these characters interact and their stories merge as both an urgent appeal and warning to recognize the vital essence of water.
Now’s your chance! Deadline for next newsletter
Send us your ideas, your news items, or resource reviews by September 15th for next month’s newsletter.
Call-backs: Feel free to suggest topics for future call back sessions
Contact Brian at climateandequity@terc.edu with ideas and proposals!
The Climate and Equity project is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.